Latest Stories

I've got you pegged

Q: We use a wall map with pushpins to keep track of
the location of our service technicians, but this manual method
requires continual phone calls and pushpin adjustments. Can you
recommend a cheap and easy technology solution that would enable us to
see where our service technicians are and possibly keep a record of
their travel routes?

A: Install the Google Latitude app (free) on each of
your service technicians’ smartphones. (Latitude runs on the AppleiOS,
Android, BlackBerry OS, Windows Mobile, and Symbian S60 platforms.)
Thereafter, Google Latitude will track and record each service
technician’s movement and position, allowing you to view his or her
location on a map in real time. Steps for deploying Google Latitude
are as follows:

2. On each service technician’s smartphone, visit the
smartphone’s app store and search for, download, and install Google
Latitude. (If Google Latitude is not available at your app store, then
download, install, and launch Google Maps, press the
Menu button, and then select Join
Latitude). Read and accept the agreement, and launch
Latitude. From the Latitudemain screen, click the
Mini button, select Locationsettings, and make sure the following two settings
are enabled:

a. Detect your location

b. Enable automatic check-ins (this setting may not
be available for all smartphones)

3. Next, on your desktop computer, from the Latitude
main screen on the website, click the Add Friends
button, then to request tracking approval, select either
Choose from your Google contacts or Invite
a friend by email address, select each service technician
from your contacts list (or enter his or her email address), and click OK.

You can also add friends from the smartphone app, but the menu
options are slightly different. To add friends to your tracking list
in the app, from the Latitude screen click the Invite
Friends button (the icon consisting of a plus sign and the
silhouette of a person), choose either Select from
Contacts or Add via email address, select
each service technician from your contacts list (or enter his or her
email address), and click OK.

4. Your service technicians will receive a request
asking them to approve your tracking of their movements via Latitude,
and they should accept your request.

5. Upon the technicians’ approval and after applying
the two setting adjustments described in step 2, you can then view
their locations by launching and logging into Latitude on your desktop
computer or smartphone. Examples of Latitude’s mapping screens on the
desktop and the smartphone are pictured below.

6. Important notes about Latitude:

a. Keep in mind that Latitude does not track the person; it tracks
the movement of the smartphone on which the app is installed.

b. The map locations pinpointed and displayed in Latitude are based
on predetermined check-in intervals you specify, or if you so desire,
you can ping the person whose phone is being tracked to determine the
phone’s current location in real time.

c. Latitude can be set to record a history of each service
technician’s travel route, including the approximate amount of time
spent at each location.

d. By enabling Latitude’s Location History feature, you can produce
map-based reports by day, week, month, or year, pinpointing locations
where the phone being tracked has stopped, including approximately how
much time it spent at each location.

e. The Latitude app provides a quick button for disabling the
tracking feature, so the person whose phone is being tracked can
maintain privacy during personal hours.

There are many GPS-based tracking solutions on the market, including
those designed to track people, vehicles, inventory shipments, laptop
computers, and even pets. Some tracking systems not only record
locations but also track other information, such as a commercial
truck’s speed and how hard the driver presses his or her brakes. Some
accounting and enterprise resource planning systems offer service
modules that include advanced service technician tracking and
scheduling. There also are highly sophisticated solutions designed to
track people using facial recognition and other methods. You should
consider this brief description of Google Latitude an introduction to
these types of solutions; investigate your options according to your
tracking needs.